University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2014 They Made Us Unrecognizable to Each Other: Human Rights, Truth, and Reconciliation in Canada Jaymelee Jane Kim University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the Indigenous Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kim, Jaymelee Jane, "They Made Us Unrecognizable to Each Other: Human Rights, Truth, and Reconciliation in Canada. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3144 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Jaymelee Jane Kim entitled "They Made Us Unrecognizable to Each Other: Human Rights, Truth, and Reconciliation in Canada." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Anthropology. Tricia R. Hepner, Dawnie W. Steadman, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Amy Z. Mundorff, Joshua Inwood Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) They Made Us Unrecognizable to Each Other: Human Rights, Truth, and Reconciliation in Canada A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Jaymelee Jane Kim December 2014 Copyright © by Jaymelee Jane Kim All rights reserved. ii For Everyone- my family, my partners, my lovers, my friends, and my colleagues- because life is a team effort. All my relations. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a seemingly endless number of people who have helped me on this journey. Many important names may go unmentioned, but they are no less appreciated. Foremost, I would like to thank my research participants for embracing me into their communities and sharing their lives with me, especially several key informants who revealed vulnerable and amazing things. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the Musqueam, Tsleil-waututh, and Squamish who so generously welcomed me into their traditional territories as well as all other Indigenous peoples who supported me throughout this experience. Personally, I am indebted to my family, friends, witnesses, and mental health care providers who have supported me tirelessly. These years have been trying and not without their challenges; it has been especially difficult to support my family over distance (and vice versa) and always-too-brief visits. My twenty-two nieces and nephews, ten siblings, parents, and grandmother have had to experience our relationships over great geographic space, feeling the brunt of my absence. I give special thanks to members of my family who have endured: Joseph, Jen, Jason, Uncle Linn, Dung, Emily, Kelly, and especially my Grandma Faye and my parents Christine and Byung Choon. Those who are no longer with us, but remain inspirational in my life include Joshua, Rick, and Grandma Betty. Over the course of my studies, my family, the Lamberjacks, Laurie, Kay, Jim, and my BK family have helped sustain me. My dearest friends and water brothers, including Adrianne, Patrick, Matt, Lauren, Kris, Mandy, Timmie, Kevin, The Orchids, Sam, and Doug have continued to encourage me, with some opening their hearts and souls to me in humbling and life changing ways. From them I have learned much. Particularly in the last few years my colleagues, such as Alice, Katie, Tyler, Christina, and Hillary have fostered a positive and inclusive professional environment-- an often overlooked yet critical component for success. iv My sister, Dinah, has been amazing and supports me more than I ever could have imagined. Amanda quite literally took care of my through poor health and continues to be one of my strongest champions. For these last two I can only hope to repay their support, and there are no words to adequately describe what they mean to me. Some have shared my life for moments and others for my lifetime, some as partners and some as friends, and I acknowledge how lucky I am to be so loved. Additionally, a long line of impressive and tenacious individuals have advised and mentored me throughout my academic career, and for this I feel the utmost gratitude. Jessica, Pat, and Fritz guided me through my undergraduate studies and taught me the personal value of professional collaboration, interdisciplinary approaches, applied experience, mutual support, and persistence. The taught me that there was always a way. Succeeding them, my Master’s advisor, Murray, and my dissertation co-chairs Trish and Dawnie privileged me with their thoughtful critiques, counsel, and most importantly-- their trust. Despite my constant challenge of norms, be they social or academic, they have stood by side and over time, deeply valued relationships have formed for which I am immensely grateful. Others who have guided me include Ben, Amy, Josh, Mark, and my department head, Andy, who had faith in my abilities and gave me the opportunity to succeed. My education, travels, field work, and professional as well as personal relationships have taught me more about myself and the beautiful complexity of humanity than I could have ever anticipated. Over these years I have undergone great personal growth in addition to my academic achievements, and I am eternally grateful to all those who contributed along the way. Last, but not least, I would like to acknowledge that the research presented herein is based on work funded by University of Tennessee Center for International Education’s McClure v scholarship and the Wenner-Gren Foundation (Grant No. 8649). In addition, this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under (Grant No. SBE- 1323160). I would like to thank these funding agencies and grant reviewers for believing in me and my work; receiving their financial support and feedback has been an honor. vi ABSTRACT Presented herein are the findings from an ethnographic analysis of the perceived efficacy of Canada’s transitional justice framework; an approach being used to address human rights violations that occurred via the Indian residential school system. With these findings and archival research, I argue that transitional justice is not perceived as an effective solution for nation-states with long histories of colonialism and institutional violence. From the 1840s until 1996, Canadian Aboriginals suffered forced assimilation, sexual abuse, and physical abuse in government-sponsored and church-administrated boarding schools. The Canadian government began to actively address these crimes in 2006 with the negotiation of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. The agreement utilizes transitional justice tools (e.g. monetary reparations, investigative truth and reconciliation commission, grave excavation) typically employed in countries undergoing a transition in political regimes or from war to peace. Using a transitional justice framework and based on data gathered primarily in the lower mainland of British Columbia, this research 1) uses critical discourse studies to analyze the use of "reconciliation" by various stakeholders, and how varying definitions affect perceptions of transitional justice, 2) discusses how knowledge production influences perceptions of transitional justice on the ground and the associated research; 3) uses a lens of structural violence to argue that transitional justice is not perceived as an effective tool in and of itself by marginalized groups when employed in a colonial context; and 4) contends that when applying a universal transitional justice framework to local contexts, structural violence and neocolonialism can be used to problematize the narrative that is produced. Contributing to critical anthropological debate, this research investigates the sociopolitical factors that influence transitional justice in a non-transitioning society that operates with a legacy of institutionalized discrimination and colonization of Native peoples. Broadly, vii these findings can inform the applied work of transitional justice facilitators, including government officials, lawyers, and anthropologists. viii PREFACE First and foremost, I would like to thank and acknowledge the Musqueam, Tsleil- Waututh, Squamish, and all Coast Salish people for allowing me to live and work in their traditional territories. I am honored. Throughout this document the term survivor is used to describe those affected by the residential schools. I understand that not everyone prefers this description, but I elected to use the most commonly-accepted term amongst Natives with whom I interacted. Furthermore, the writing style employed in this dissertation encourages the reader to piece together information that I have provided but also may at times make the reader uncomfortable. That is the intention. For the non-Indigenous, at times the language may feel too vague when making cultural references, creating an unsettling sense of being “the Other.”